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“Why is Let’s Play So Huge?” – Warren

In “Why is Let’s Play So Huge?” Jamin Warren explains why Let’s Play have become so popular. First, Warren outlines some of the stats on just how big Let’s Plays are. PewDiePie, the most popular Let’s Player has not only more subscribers than any other Let’s Player but more than anyone else at all on Youtube (over 12 million subscribers at of Warren’s argument). The top 4 Let’s Plays have a combined subscriber rate of 26 million subscribers. As Warren observes, “that’s more subscribers than Canada has people.” To explain why people are so busy watching other people play games, Warren starts with one obvious reason: money. Games are expensive and not everyone has the disposable income to purchase all the game’s they’d like to play. Let’s Plays give them access to see the content of these games, anyway. Another reason is strategy – viewers learn by watching. Of course, Warren points out they are also entertaining. More importantly, though, Let’s Play connect a culture that was, in its beginnings in arcades, a social one. With the advent of consoles, playing alone became more frequent. As Warren puts it “Games got better, but the gaming experience got worse.” Let’s Play, according to Warren, bring back the arcade atmosphere and the social elements of gaming culture.